Remedy Entertainment has been working on the Alan Wake sequel for over a year now, but the Finnish studio has yet to see any money!

Alan Wake 2 has become one of the most successful Finnish games to date, according to Metacritics, with an average score of 89 on a scale of 1-100, the same as the first Max Payne. However, sales have not been so good. Back in March, Remedy Entertainment CEO Tero Virtala said the game had already returned “most of” its investment to backer Epic Games Publishing. But more than six months have passed since then, and it’s as if nothing has happened!

“At the end of the quarter, Alan Wake 2 had recouped most of its development and marketing costs. After the end of the quarter, Alan Wake 2’s second expansion, The Lake House, was released on October 22nd along with the physical Deluxe Edition of the game,” Virtala said. So, still no profit for the developers from an otherwise great game! What is the reason for this apparent failure?

Remedy’s games have never been mainstream, but one factor is that Alan Wake 2 was just released on disk, so it was only available in digital stores for a year. The other factor is that the game’s deal with Epic Games Publishing means that it won’t appear on Steam, so it’s only available on the Epic Games Store on PC. And that doesn’t have the same audience as Valve’s platform…

Virtala also shared where the Finnish studio’s three projects stand: “FBC: Firebreak, formerly codenamed Condor, continues in full production with a focus on iterating on the core loop and implementing more of the UI (user interface) for more player clarity based on playtest feedback. Control 2 has progressed well in the production readiness phase and is on track to enter full production in 2025. Many of the game’s critical features have been implemented to mitigate production risk, and workflows and pipelines are being tested in preparation for full production. Max Payne 1&2 Remake is making steady progress towards full production. The development team continues its work and is reaching important milestones.

So the Epic deal wasn’t very successful for them, although Alan Wake 2 wouldn’t have been made without them…

Source: WCCFTech, Remedy Entertainment